Notes on the MS. volume of Shelley's poems in the library of Harvard College

Woodberry, George Edward

Notes on the MS. volume of
Shelley's poems in the library
of Harvard College

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2010 with funding from

University of Toronto

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Bibliographical Contributions.

EDITED BY JUSTIN WINSOR,

LIBRARIAN.

No. 35.

NOTES ON THE MS. VOLUME OF SHELLEY'S POEMS
IN THE LIBRARY OF HARVARD COLLEGE.

By GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY.

CAMBRIDGE. MASS. :
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Already issued or in preparation.

A Star prefixed indicates they are not yet ready.

VOL. I.

Edward S. Holden. Index-Catalogue of Books and

Memoirs on the Transits of Mercury.
Justin Wxnsor. Shakespeare's Poems: a Bibliography

of the Earlier Editions.
Charles Eliot Norton. Principal books relating to

the Life and Works of Michelangelo, with Notes.
JUSTIN Winsor. Pietis et Gratulatio. An Inquiry

into the authorship of the several pieces.
List of Apparatus in different Laboratories of the

United States, available for Scientific Researches

involving Accurate Measurements.
The Collection of Books and Autographs, be.

queathed to Harvard College Library, by the Honor-

able Charles Sumner.
William C. Lane. The Dante Collections in the

Harvard College and Boston Public Libraries. Pt. I.
Calendar of the Arthur Lee Manuscripts in Harvard

College Library.
George Lincoln Goodale. The Floras of different

countries.
. Justin Winsor. Halliwclliana: a Bibliography of the

Publications of James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps.

II. Samuel H Scudder. The Entomological Libraries
of the United States.

ia. First List of the Publications of Harvard Uni-
versity and its Officers. 1S70-1SS0.

13. Samuel H. Scudder. A Bibliography of Fossil

Insects.

14. William H. Tillinghast. Notes on the Historical

Hydrography of the Handkerchief Shoal in the
Bahamas.

15. J. D. Whitney. List of American Authors in Geology

and Paleontology.

16. Richard Bliss. Classified Index to the Maps in

Petermanu's Geographische Mittheilungen. 1S55-
18S1.

17. Richard Bliss. Classified Index to the Maps in the

Royal Geographical Society's Publications. 1S30-

1SS3.
iS. Justin Winsor. The Bibliography of Ptolemy's

Geography.
19. Justin Winsor. The Kohl Collection of Early Maps.
30. William C. Lane. Index to Recent Reference

Lists, no. 1. 1SS4-1SS5.

VOL. II.

■1. Second List of the Publications of Harvard Uni-
versity and its Officers. 1SS0-1SS5.
ai. Justin Winsor. Calendar of the Sparks Manuscripts

in Harvard College Library.
13. William H. Tillinghast. Third List of the Publica-'

tions of Harvard University and its Officers. 1SS5-

18S6.
x*. William C. Lane. Index to Recent Reference Lists,

no. a. 1SSS-1SS6.
jc. W. G Farlow and William Trelease. List of

Works on North American Fungi,
ao. William C. Lane. The Carlylc Collection.
27. Andrew McF. I'avis. A few notes on the Records

of Harvard College.
2^. William H. Tillinghast. Fourth List of Public*.
tions of Harvard University and its Officers. 1SS6-

1SS7.

39. William C. Lank. Index to Recent Reference Lists,
no. 3. 1887.

30. Facsimile of the autograph of Shelley's poem " To a

Skylark," with a letter from Mr. Edward A. Silsbee.

31. W. G. Farlow. Supplemental List of Works on

North American Fungi.

32. H. C. Badger. Mathematical Theses. 17SJ-1839.

33. William H. Tillinghast. Fifth list of Publications

of Harvard University and its Officers. 1SS7-1SSS.
•34. William C. Lane. The Dante Collections in the
Harvard College and Boston Public Libraries.
35, George E. Woodberry. Notes on the ms. of Shelley
In the Harvard College Library.

NOTES ON THE MS. VOLUME OF SHELLEY'S POEMS

LIBRARY OF HARVARD COLLEGE.

By GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY.

This volume was given to the Library by Mr. Edward A. Silsbee, who received it from a lady in
Florence closely connected with the Shelleys. It is a thin quarto bound in parchment. Many leaves
have been cut out, but the titles of the missing poems are supplied by an index at the end. It was plainly
a copy-book and not intended for use in original composition. The aim of the following notes is to place
before students of the text of Shelley the variations which this volume supplies from the text of For-
man's edition. London, 1876. Words in the us. differing from the Formal! text are in italics: if the
variations are of another character, they are not indicated by difference of type. In disputed passages,
when no information is given below, it is to be understood that Forman's text is sustained by the MS.
Variations in pointing and capitalizing are, as a rule, not noted; neither are the cancelled readings.
Forman's titles, when differing from those in the MS., are printed in italics between parentheses.

A facsimile of the draft of The Skylark constitutes No. 30 of the series of BIBLIOGRAPHICAL
Contributions, and is here reproduced.

Part II.

Part III.

Pages 1-4G : cut out.

47-60 : The Sensitive Plant. Pisa, March,
1820. Shelley's hand.
Part I. ; lines 29-33, do not occur.
47, glide or dance
lawn and moss
And the plumed
in a sunny 6ea
the going (Mrs. Shelley's

reading)
Through all the sweet
mist of morning
And lilies were drooping

white and wan
Leaf by leaf, day after day
mists
66-69, struck out.
100, and their sudden flight from

the frost
102, Under the roots
Conclusion. Not divided from the preceding.

1, And if the
5, Or if that

\ote. Part III., line 30. Shelley's edition
reads "Leaf after leaf, day after day." Mr*.
Shelley's editions substitute by for the second
after. Mr. Swinburne (Essays and Studies, p.
186) supports this reading as probably correct.

49,

82,

23.

59,
23,

30,
63,

Forman cites the parallel lines in Rosalind and
Helen, " But day hy day. week after week," and
" Ami hour hy hour, day after day." The read-
ing afforded by the MS., being identical with these,
and more melodious than that of Mrs. Shelley,
may safely be accepted. Lines 66-69 : similarly
omitted in Mrs. Shelley's editions, but restored in
Forman and Rossetti in the absence of MS. authority
for the omission. This authority is now found.
Pages 61-68 : A Vision of the Sea. Pisa, April,
1820. Mrs. Shelley's hand: the
date, Shelley's hand.
Line 8, sunk (Mrs. Shelley's reading!
35, by the waters

37, sits

38, crew who

87, the smiling disguise
160, grasps it convulsively
Nate. The past tenses are not contracted, and
the spelling tyger is used. See Forman, ii., p. 281,
note 1 ; p. 282, note 1.
Pages 69-70 : To Night. Mrs. Shelley's hand.

Line 1, o'er the western wave
Page 71 : An Anacreontic (Love's Philosophy).
Florence, January, 1820. Shel-
ley's hand.
Line 3, melt together

15, were these examples worth

NOTE ON THE MS. VOLUME OF SHELLEY'S POEMS.

Note. The poem was first published in The
Indicator, Dec. 22, 1819. The present ms. ver-
sion differs from that of The Indicator, as above,
and also in lines 11 and 12, in which it has the later
form. It would naturally be thought that the
readings above were earlier than these of The
Indicator, but the date, January, 1820, is against
that view, and in the ms. the word all is written
before " these examples " and crossed out, as if the
common reading were in the mind of the writer
and had been rejected, or else the reading, "all
this sweet work," which occurs in the Stacey .ms
in Leigh Hunt's Literary Pocket-Book for 1819)
given by Shelley to Miss Sophia Stacey, Dec. 29,
1820.

Pages 72-75 : cut out.

Pages 76-77 : An Exhortation. Pisa, April. 1820.
Shelley's hand.

Line 10, t'«

Nate. The date sustains Rossetti's suggestion
that this was the poem sent to Mrs. Gisborne by
Shelley, May 8, 1820. (Shelley Memorials, p. 141).

Pages 78-80: Ode to Heaven. Florence. De-
cember, 1819. Shelley's hand.
Pages 81-83: Song (Rarely, rarely, comrst thou)
Pisa, May, 1820. Mrs. Shelley's
hand; date, Shelley's hand.
Pages 84-86: A Dream ( The Question). Mrs.
Shelley's hand.
Line 14, enclosed in parentheses.
IS, Ilearen's collected
31, punctuate. And bulrushes and reeds,
Page 87 : Ode to Liberty. Shelley's hand.
Lines 1-3, A glorious people vibrated again

The lightning of the Nations —
Liberty
From heart etc.
4, unto the sky

10, Heaven

11, the spirit's whirlwind wrapt it

15, Deep. I

16, moon

17, Abyss

18, Heaven

19, Island

Note. The poem ends with line 21. and is
crossed out. The punctuation of the opening
lines, however, is important in view of Forman's

emendation, and the i f capitals (not elsewhere

noticed in thii paper) is an instructive example of
Shelley's habit with regard to them.

Page 90: Tin Indian Serenade. Shelley's hand.
Line :'.. The winds

4, burning (The Liberal reading)
7, lias burnt (Mrs. Shelley reads feu
led, 1824)

11, The champak odours (Mrs. Shelley's
reading, 1824)

15, As I must die on thine (Mrs. Shelley's

reading, 1839)

16, Oh, beloved as thou art (Mrs. Shelley's

reading. 1839)

17, Oh.

23, it close to thine again (Mrs. Shelley's
reading, 1824)
Note. The text of this poem is much disputed.
Forman derives his reading in lines 11, 1G, 23,
from a ms. found on Shelley's person after his
death and deciphered by Browning; the same
source gives hath for has in line 7, agreeing with
the first published version, The Liberal, no. ii.,
1822. In line 15, die is omitted by The Liberal
and by Mrs. Shelley's edition. 1824, but is restored
by her in 1839. Rnssetti rejects the Browning
readings. A MS. copy, given by Shelley to Miss
Sophia Stacey in 1819. is said to be extant, but
there is no account of it, further than that Rossetti
mentions seeing a copy of it.

Pages 91-92: Song (Remembrance). Shelley's
hand.
Line 5, As the earth when leaves are dead

6, sped

7, fled

10. her reign
Note. Forman's text is from a ms. in Shelley's
hand on the fly-leaf of a copy of Adonais, then
owned by Lord Houghton. Rossetti descril <•> a
MS., also in Shelley's hand, sent to Mrs. Williams:
he received it from Trelawney. The present ms.
is Mrs. Shelley's text, and seems intermediate
between the other two.

Pages 92-93: To William (" My lost William").
Shelley's hand.

Motto : with what truth may I say —

Line 16, Of sweet flowers.
Pages 94-97 : cut out.
Pages 98-99 : blank.

Pages 100-105: To a Skylark. See Facsimile
given herewith.

Note. Line 15: the reading unbodied disposes
of the much disputed emendation, embodied, and

sustains the original editions.

106-109: SOHO ( To the Men of England),
torn out, except a small portion
on which may be read two or three
words of Btanzas 1 and 8.
Pages 109 (duplicate)-HS : Hymn ro Mnoi hy.
Translated from the Greek of
Homer. Mrs. Shelley's hand.
Stanza :'. line 7. in his

18, ■>■ Ocian spray

14. 5, J'iera's

NOTE ON THE MS. VOLUME OF SHELLEY'S POEMS.

29, 7, wills not

31, 4, depth

32, 7, neighbor
43, 3, hurl

5, or your
53, 3, purpose; as

61, 3, or

62, 6, in great ruth
74, 2, heifer-AriVa'ngr
77, 7, As now. I
85, 7, as o/ an adept
93, 5, mist

96, 7, from death

97, 2, covered their love with joy
5, wandering far

iVoze. The reading in stanza 43, line 3, is a
valuable restoration, and several others are worth
consideration; that in 97, line 2, especially, seems
to settle a difficult point satisfactorily. In stanza
62 it is interesting to compare Rossetti, iii., p. 429,
note; here all editions have wrath for ruth, and
Rossetti observes : " The rhyming of ' wrath ' with
'untruth' is an ultra-Shelleyan audacity ; there is
no opening for a suspicion of misprinting." The
sense requires 'wrath,' it is true; but the word
' ruth ' is written in this ms. It may be remarked
also, in stanza 93, that the spelling mist for missed
in Mrs. Shelley's edition, on which Forman an-
notates, iv., p. 180, note 1, may have been in con-
sequence of the rhymes above; but it is also
possibly due to the cramping of the word into a
small space at the lower outside corner of the
page, as this ms. shows it.

Pages 145 (duplicate)-148 : To the Lord Chan-
cellor. Shelley's hand.
Line 50, snares and arts

60, soul is (Mrs. Shelley's reading in two

copies written by her, but not in

her editions)

Note. This poem is the only one which shows

signs of being composed on the page itself; it is

much erased and interlined, and two stanzas, 7 and

8, which the poet found it impossible to shape in

their place, are left in confusion and afterwards

added at the end in fair script.

Pages 149-150 : England (Lines written during
the Castlereagh administration).
Shelley's hand.
Line 4. deatt-white

16, festival din (Mrs. Shelley's reading)
25, the ("thy" altered) (Mrs. Shelley's
reading)
Note. In line 4, death is added above the line.
The same correction, with others, was adopted by
Rossetti from a later ms. in Shelley's hand pur-
chased for an American collector at a sale in 1874.

Page 150: Song (Good- Night). Shelley's hand.

Note. Rossetti gives a different version, derived
from the Stacey MS. in the Literary rocket-Book
already mentioned.

Page 151: Sonnet (" Ye hasten to the dead").
Hand different from the others.
Line 7, must go

8, would know
Note. See Forman, iv., p. 572, and Rossetti,
iii., p. 408, for an account of a later ms.

Page 152 : Sonnet, to the Republic of Bene-
vento (Political Greatness).
Shelley's hand.
Line 6, its pageant
Note. No explanation of the title has been found.

Pages 153-158 : Ballad. Young Parson Rich-
ards. Mrs. Shelley's hand; cor-
rections, Shelley's hand.
Note. This is an unpublished poem of twenty-
one stanzas of four lines each, except the first,
which has five lines. It is entirely valueless in
itself and uninstructive with respect either to
Shelley or to the growth of his poetical genius.

Page 159 : Index, ending on inside of opposite
cover. The titles of missing
poems thus supplied are as fol-
lows, Furman's substitute-titles
being italicized :
Page 1 : Maddalo and Julian.
30 : The Mask of Anarchy
38: To S[idmou]th and C[astlerea]gh
(Similes for Two Political Char-
acters of 1819)
39: E . . . d (Sonnet: England in 1819 1)
40 : An Ode (Ode written October, 1819')
42 : Translation from Moschus (Pan, Echo

and the Satyr)
43 : A Fragment
72 : Lines written at Naples
75 : Sonnet (" Lift not the painted veil"?)
88-90: contents not given, possibly blank.
106 : To , a sonnet (Lines to a Re-
viewer?)
Men of England, a song.

109 : To ■

145: ToL[or]dE[ldo]n

Note. Of the poems now contained in this
volume, six were published by Shelley with Pro-
metheus Unbound. They were The Sensitive
Plant, A Vision of the Sea, An Exhortation, Ode
to Heaven, To a Skylark, and Ode to Liberty;
the first three are marked published in the ms.
Of the remainder, all were published by Mrs.
Shelley in the Posthumous Poems, 1824, except To
the Lord Chancellor, and England (Lines written

NOTE ON THE MS. VOLUME OF SHELLEY'S POEMS.

during the Castlereagh Administration). Of the
poems shown by the Index to be missing, Maddalo
and Julian and Lines written at Naples were also
published in the same volume. It may safely be

conjectured that the Translation from Mosehus
is the one so entitled in the same volume, and
that the two sonnets, not further entitled, arc
" Lift not the painted veil" and "Alas, good
(Lines to a Reviewer), which directly
follow " Ye hasten to the dead" and Political
Greatness, also in the same volume. " Alas, good
friend" is but thirteen lines and the rhymes are
not in sonnet form ; but the title To , a son-
net, would give Mrs. Shelley's authority for calling
the poem a sonnet ; and, in the absence of any other
piece answering to this title and belonging to the
period of the us., it is altogether likely that this
is the one referred to. The four sonnets published
by Mrs. Shelley in 1S24 would then be all in this

list. To and A Fragment may be any of

several pieces so entitled in the Posthumous
Poems.

It appears, therefore, that all the poems origi-
nally in this volume were publishe.1 by Mrs. Shel-
ley in 1824, except those which had previously-
appeared with Prometheus Unbound and those
which were political. Of these last, the Masque
of Anarchy was published by Leigh Hunt in
1832; England {Lines written during the Cast le-
reagh administration), and To S[idmou]th and
C[aatlerea]gh {Similes for two Political Charac-
ters of 1819) were puhlishe 1 by Medwin, Shelley
/'a!*,,*, 1883, reprinted from The Athenaeum,
1832. Mrs. Shelley included in her collected
editions of 1839 the above (with variations in the
lir»t two an 1 ad led To the Lord Chancellor and
Song to the Men of England; she also then pub-

lished the Sonnet, England in 1819, conjectured
here to be that indexed as E .... d. The " Ode,"
if a slight conjecture may be based on the group-
ing by Mrs. Shelley, may be that entitled by her
To the Assertors of Liberty (Ode written October,
1S19), originally published with Prometheus Un-
bound, or possibly the National Anthem, published
in the second edition of 1839.

It is possible that Mrs. Shelley used this MB.
volume for the Posthumous Poems, 1824, and
excluded from her collection at that time the
political pieces ; or she may have derived from it
only material for her editions of 1839 ; or she may
have used it upon both occasions. The fact that
her exact dates affixed to poems in the edition of
1824 are the same with those in this MS., support
the view that she then had access to it. It may
not be superfluous to add that her variations from
Hunt's later and better us. of Julian and Maddalo
would be explained by this means without the
need of supposing that she " edited" the text un-
advisedly or carelessly; the date affixed by her,
Koine, May, 1819, would also be justified, since
these dates are all apparently not those of com-
position but of entry in the volume. Similar con-
siderations apply to her variations from Hunt in
the text of The Masque of Anarchy. The us.
of that poem, which is missing from this volume
and which Mrs. Shelley may have used, is appa-
rently not that facsimiled by the Shelley Society
in its Publications. Whether this its. volume was
a source of Mrs. Shelley's text or not, it nearly
represents it, and is interesting as tending to estab-
lish her fidelity to Shelley's mss. and to increase
the authority of her text, when it is not super-
seded by that of mss. later than those in her
possession.

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Woodberry, George Edward
6616 Notes on the MS. volume of

S54W6 Shelley's poems in the library

of Harvard College

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

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